By Lucille Hall ’13
On April 30th, the Advanced Placement Environmental Science class visited Lakeside Energy plant near Heathrow. The plant can recover energy from over 400,000 tons of local waste, reducing the amount sent to landfill and generating 37 MW of electricity, enough to meet the domestic needs of 50,000 homes in Slough.
We took a tour of the plant and learned about how reusable or toxic materials are filtered out from the waste, which is then incinerated to produce electricity. The class split up into two groups, and designed energy plans to supply electricity to Slough. We learned about different kinds of energy production including: natural gas, geothermal, and methods to reduce, reuse, and recycle our waste.
Energy recovery from waste is an important, efficient, and clean way to provide energy to thousands of households and to significantly reduce the environmental consequences of sending our waste to landfills.